WORLDTECHNvidia limits China share of $70B RTX PRO 5500 order to 1%
According to Crypto Briefing, Nvidia has allocated only 1% of a $70 billion RTX chip order to clients in China, a shortfall the outlet ties to production constraints and export controls that shape global access to AI hardware.
Orders far outstrip available supply
Crypto Briefing reports that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent together ordered more than 3 million units of the RTX PRO 5500, a sum of roughly $35 billion at a price of about $11,400 per card. The outlet says total orders from Chinese customers have passed 6 million units, which at list prices would amount to potential revenue of around $70 billion.
Nvidia puts global production capacity for the card in 2027 at 3 million units, a figure that Chinese orders alone would more than double. Earlier reporting indicated that many Chinese clients could receive only 5% to 10% of the cards they requested, and Bloomberg's 1% figure points to an even tighter squeeze.
Why the workstation card draws Chinese buyers
The RTX PRO 5500 is designed for professional visual work, yet Chinese buyers reportedly want it for AI inference, the phase in which a trained model produces answers rather than learning from new data. Nvidia's more advanced accelerators, such as the Blackwell B300, fall under US export controls, leaving Chinese companies with the products still open to them.
The concentration of orders on a single model shows how heavily Chinese technology groups still depend on Nvidia hardware. Nvidia is reportedly favouring its next-generation platforms when allocating capacity for commercial shipments.
Timeline for samples and shipments
Sample units are expected to be available by December 2026. Production is set to start in the first quarter of 2027, and commercial shipments are expected to begin in that same quarter.
Open questions
- Will Nvidia raise its China allocation once production capacity increases?
- How will US export rules affect future access to the RTX PRO 5500 for Chinese buyers?